


afterwords, afterimages, afterlives (afterworlds, aftertastes, aftermath)

by cockcrow



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Not Epilogue Compliant, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 02:54:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8951068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cockcrow/pseuds/cockcrow
Summary: “So, did you ever think it would end up this way?”“Not really, no. The picture in my head was a lot more, erm, violent, I suppose.”“Penny for a thought, I wish the ending could've been more of a happily ever after.”“Same. Too bad it never really goes like how we imagine it.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> • unbetad  
> • absolutely terrible  
> • goes nowhere  
> • experimental

Imagine something, anything about what happened to them after. Think a little more vividly: would the air be fresh? How would the sun set? Now imagine a world built up by them. Would it make sense? Would the sky stay blue? Now think about the everything they went through. How would the nights feel, the mornings? Now think about their beliefs, passions, shortcomings, hopes. Would it even hold together? Now say it out loud, say what kind of world you constructed in your mind; let the image loose and run wild.

No matter the answer you provided, the answer can't be described or announced.

So, in a way, you're wrong and undeniably correct in all the wrong/right ways. Circle one.

 

 

“So, did you ever think it would end up this way?”

“Not really, no. The picture in my head was a lot more, erm, violent, I suppose.”

“Penny for a thought, I wish the ending could've been more of a happily ever after.”

“Same. Too bad it never really goes like how we imagine it.”

 

 

He is a boy, or no. That doesn't fit anymore, does it now. He is a teen, wizened through experience but scarred like torn photographs. To think he is different from any other boy would be correct and tainted with a resounding no. He is himself, but he is also all and all there ever will be. To say that this is impossible is to say he is dead. In a way, it is true but false. The perspective needed to understand all is riddled and gone, or so he hopes. A hum of classes, aspects, rules drift out like a sun's quiet tune in the morning. He is not content, and he knows that time won't heal it. Every instance of him knows.

She is her: not made up of mismatched, slanted, and tiny particles. In fact, she is very singular, she might add. Although, maybe there's a lot more singularities than just her. If he was everything, then she was simply anything. She wasnt caught up in being torn up as multiples, but she painstakingly held the world in her hands with a calm and quiet silence worthy of the suns and moons. Her lips twinkle like a stars and her hair fades into a nebula glowing from lingering gas and dust. Music floods through a living room door, and she aimlessly flips through pages of the book with no clear goal in mind. But this is not where this story will be seen, but a couple days later. Well, maybe hours, time is a bit finicky here. She thinks, this introductory statement is dumb.

 

 

“hey im at johns place  
“dont hold up,” reads a single letter, but is unread so far.

She wakes up like any other morning, and in this way it's entirely forgettable, and it's absolutely disregarded immediately. Forget about it, she thought to herself, and the sun rose and set and she found herself standing with the soft, settling scent of evergreens in the air. She could taste the minty taste of toothpaste. The time ticked on and on, and the morning faded away alongside her bland, grey dreams. Tick, tick, tick.

Location: home. Stuck? No. Or… Wait, why am I still here, she thought. Her hand flickered like a candle but she quickly snapped out of it. Being corporeal is much harder than you'd think it'd be, especially since the focus was shifted. To become substantial and physical was a choice some of them didn't follow along with. “I'm content,” they said. “… ,” they chased.

She lost one of her friends that afternoon(?), and she felt like becoming incorporeal herself back then. Now focus, she reminded herself, and shook her head.

The day had evergreens shooting up like skyscrapers soaring high. (Land of …. and …. , she imagined.) Her brain toppled like a tower of china plates stacking on and on until it met the height of Mt. Everest. It settled on one thing: her name. Her name? Name? Shoot what was it, she scrambled into the attic where the captchalogues were abandoned. Hands were perfectly helpful and it's not like they don't have pockets from their GodTier garb (or in her case, DogTier). There was no dust in there since she had plumaged through the cards in search for her old items like around last week, who knows. Scatters of unwanted cans of Tab flew up and about like buzzing bees zooming for a nearby flower or a hummingbird looking something to suckle on. Soon the attic looked as if a tornado had danced its ballet act with its usual vigour, and she huffed and puffed with exhaustion. A single slip of paper swung it the air like a pendulum, but soon landed on her head, ending its motions.

She bounced like a spring in motion and the paper flew straight into her hand and clutched on. Or maybe she just held it. And the vivid, vivid thoughts that once smeared like paint came together like a jigsaw puzzle.

She was once thirteen, and she had a name. The toppling tower of china crashed on the floor. The breaking sound a faint memory that isn't needed to be explained. She then remembers something else, but she doesn't care. She found her name and it's—.

 

 

  
“You know, it's kind of funny.”

“What is?”

“After all this, and it wasn't even supposed to happen, we get this?”

“…”

“Fuck that, fuck this. I was thirteen once, and now age doesn't even matter to us anymore. We're so alive and dead at the same time, I can't even look at the mirror anymore without feeling disturbed.”

“…”

“We have the entire world in our hands to mesh and mend, but we're all so broken that I feel like if we even try, we'll break it along with us.”

“…”

“I know Earth was a shitty place with a shitty society with their shitty expectations, but at least back then, I knew where my feet stood and where I should be looking.”

“…”

“But...  
“I don't know.  
“And I don't think I ever will.  
“…”

 

 

Jade Harley. She had realised the note and listened to the written words. Jade Harley. She tumbled like a bowling ball as she soared through the sky, shortening the distance, space between the homes. His name kept slipping from her mind and she bit her lips in worry. He stopped seeing John, so him seeing John? Inconceivable. Impossible. Broken.

Jade Harley. Her hand stubbed a overreaching branch and she cursed like sailor, making the moon blush. The colourful words flew off in rapid succession and the woods slid a few shades dimmer and the chill that could've been blown off as a breezy spring(?) felt like a winter-summer fusion. It's a omen to no one, and she heeded it.

Jade Harley. She imagined the pathway as immediate and she opened her eyes. Not teleportation per say, not space manipulation per say, and not voodoo witchcraft per say. She couldn't say, she couldn't remember. Jade Harley, she repeated. She is lost, and she is exactly where she needs to be. A tiny piece of a puzzle, something in place for the gears to keep churning. Now, where is she, she thought to herself. Jade Harley, she continued.

 

 

John is not one to forget, but to say he is here is to lie. He is here but not. John was not one to choose to be incorporeal. But he didn't deny himself to be so. He does not fade in and out, nor does he blink like a satellite. John is a special circumstance. John is a one-of-a-kind. John is broken down. John is scattered about. John is a extenuating circumstance. John is normal. We're so sorry but John no longer with us. Oh yes, John will be ready to see you any moment now. John. John. John. He gives a weak smile as he twists like the wind. John is alive and dead, much like the others. But, it is not his story so he goes back into hiding like any reasonable surviver would do.

 

 

Jade Harley, she bounces in her mind. She can tell the name has a valid, dangerous air to it, but it's slowly blending away like when paint is washed away. She grits her teeth as she pushes through the door, not opening it. The burst of particles mending in a way that leaves her unscathed but not unchanged has her quivering. The name is still there, lodged in her brain. This is where John is, this is where John isn't. She needs to see John.

She trudges into the thick vines that block out the light flooding through the windows, and soon a fragrant aroma of fresh cookies slice through the earthy smell in the air. Jane, she imagines. But, she knows it's John. Jade Harvey, she enunciates. She goes enters the doorway and a ding pops suddenly in the air, and it drags her down into a thinking well. Dead time.

Dead time is when something is inactive. She laid there on the bottom with a plink, plink, plink of a water drop landing on her head echoing through the small hole. Jade Harvey, she begins. She tries to connect it to him (not John but him), but the massive question mark blocks any pathway, so she redirects it to her friend. The one that doesn't exist anymore. A sullen connection.

 

 

Coming to a new world, he never really had any hopes that it would become anything coherent and lively. The simmering thoughts of gloom clung to his hands and the burning eyes of everyone left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. It's funny, isn't it, he would keep repeating. A Page of Hope, and I can't even hold onto his hopes, he weakly smiles. It's a pale joke that hurts his head with a scathing throbbing as it came second by second like a drip.

Jake climbs into his new abode: a lonely thing with no more of the familiar posters; with no more of the technology; and with no more of anything but the walls and bed. It's a desolate motion of air that brings him nearly to tears as he lands onto his bed that no longer seems to be able to feel warm. Despair would be right, hopeless too. Empty? Sure, he would agree. But, in a way he also hasn't lost his hope. He couldn't be able to explain why.

Soon a murmuring hum flowed through in quiet chants, a lyrical lie. You could say it winked if you considered two eyelids batting at the same time as winking. It winked, you would say. Whispers of deceit dug into his skull and fraught with blankness, he listened. “You could disappear,” it started. A rubbing smash of water slamming on and on and on. A brittle twist and twirl of dream fuel as it tumbles down like snowflakes. Mourning tranquility from veiled silence and rushed aggravations of the unknown.

And then it ended, but 'then' was much later and much harsher than anyone expected.

 

 

John whizzed in the pouring rain—a bucket filled with water pouring down a drain—and he could tell by the mood, atmosphere (dark, cloudy, rusty red) that something, something wild, would happen. It held an untrustworthy glint in the silver linings—almost like a pale menacing grin, you could say. He needed to be there, he thought. It was like a compelling command.

Jade Harley tried to grip his hand but Jake shrugged it off and distanced himself. Don't be ridiculous, Jade would say. Jake would look with a dangerous glint in his eyes, and his mouth would move in a slick and indifferent motion. Waves of white, hot thunder-fire plaguing the land until almost everything was consumed in its shocking glow. Jade covered her eyes with her arms and the wild echoes of the distant sea roared in her mind. The taste of the seafoam bathed her tongue in its taste and her voice roared like the sea. Suddenly the waxy, blue-hued ocean fell down like a downpour.

Dave gritted his teeth as he saw Dirk battling Rose, the bounce of the rain as it collided into them. His eyes analytical of what happened next. Quickly, a burning, steam flowed over from Jade's side and a buried cry flew out of the mist. Dave's body moved immediately, and multiples of Daves jumped into the fray. The clouds of steam almost burning them raw.

Jane, worried, didn't know what to do, so she stayed back alongside the Mayor. The ongoing battles rattling her. She hoped no one would die, but, of course, she isn't a Hero of Hope.

Jade's hair got in her way, and she pushed it aside. She could tell something was about to arise; the air prickled against her skin. John was up ahead with a furrow in his brow and a worried look, she picked up. Jake was rushing to the side, and the possibility of colliding with the rest worried her. Rose could keep track of what would happen, but in the midst of a battle… She could fade away, she thought. Her hands shifted into a stance from back then, and her mind thought small, molecular. And she pushed inwards.

…

…

“Stay away.  
“Don't get any closer than that.  
“Please…”

Jade only remembers the, “I'm content,” and so on.

 

 

Jade had a friend like that, she thinks. But its hard to keep track sometimes. Her memory hasn't exactly been the best lately, she remembers him saying. But, she does not remember Dave, so she forgets a second later. She needs to find him.

 

 

John is here, in the kitchen, baking cookies (home-made) and there Jade is, stuck. She's sitting crisscross on the floor with an intense glare on the floor, so he leaves her alone. He thinks she needs the thinking time, she's been forgetting a lot after all. John wishes things could go back. He thinks they all need the thinking time.

 

 

Rose is absent. Please leave a message after the tone. … Beep.

“Hello? It's me, Jade. I know we haven't been talking much. Well, I don't think any of us have been talking much these days, but… Well, I just… wanted you to know that Dave doesn't blame you for what happened. You're not to blame. Please, Ros—.

She goes back to sleep, maybe she'll see Derse one day again. She'll be in her tower, awake. She'll be back to John's birthday: April 13. Another scratch.

 

 

John thinks of Dave, he thinks about Dave a lot lately. It's hard not to considering he's everything and yet nothing. John found that staying consistent is difficult, to just ignore the passing and change of time is hard. John doesn't know what to do, much like everyone else. He wishes he knew, but he knows he's only a Heir of Breath, free to do anything. A curse, he mused. And his mind wanders back to Dave as he pushes the tray of Jane's home-made cookie recipe.

 

 

Dave. He is not a focus of this story. Do not worry about him.

 

 

Jade opens her eyes, she is back as the main character. Piercing blue eyes glance at her as she starts standing up. John, her mouth voicelessly echoes. His eyes twinkle with a tiniest shimmer that actually feels real. It grounds her.

 

 

“Hey… Are you alright.”

“With all this happening? No way, no how.”

“What's with your no-can-do attitude, this isn't like you.  
“You used to take reign of things, you wouldn't let tiny things like this control you and your actions. You tried and you achieved.”

“You think you know me? You think this is just a simple tiny thing that I can just shrug off like it's nothing? You keep talking and talking and talking like that, but you never really mean it, do you!  
“Don't try to act like you're innocent, I know what kinds of words you say and actions you do when I turn my back against you. You try to be perfect, but it never amounts to anything, okay! I'm not okay and obviously you're not either!”

“…”

 

 

She hums a tiny tune, soundless but still there. A quick, little ditty that keeps the name Jade Harley in her head. She knows that person is her, but it feels wrong, disused, and unneeded. She wonders if she really needs to have a name when everyone knows her already. Why does she have to be labeled with words, she bounces in her head. And, soon, a nagging, barking, terrible thing pounds at her skull; it keeps yelling and shouting and screaming on and on and on. Until it hits something, something solid, something that holds some weight to it. She tried to listen into the pounding—it's like a door, she thinks, and opens the door—that keeps coming and coming like ebb and flow of the tide. It all clicks together, and the silent motions of a memory floods in her head. The knockings are gone.

It's a staticky crackling noise that blares in her head, but with a little fine-tuning… The noise clears away and she can see the faint, little fadings of the edges like as if it's a Polaroid photograph. It wouldn't make sense if she told you what she saw. It's her memory to know and remember, not yours.

Yet again, her eyes clear up and she knows. “I have to go,” she says so solidly, it holds together for once. He looks at her with such a sad, grim look.

“Must you?  
“You're always on the run, you never stop to wait.  
“You never seem to ever look around you anymore.  
“Have you ever stopped to wonder if you're lost?  
“No… Don't answer that, I already know what you'll say.”

She stays silent, but in her heart is the beginnings of a wildfire spreading through with vigour and strength. There are a million words she could say, but she doesn't. She lets you in to a different memory to compensate: She has been speaking to John.

Jade lets herself forget John. For if there's no one to remember, then there never was that someone. The figure fades and becomes transparent. She doesn't say a word; she refuses to. Her heart feels tender and her voice raw. The fogging of memories drift over like a plague and she ignores the thumping inside her head.

The house feels foreign and unfamiliar, and she doesn't care much for it. She jumps out through a window and the violet-lavender gradient of a sky beckons. The crisp, glowering steam inside her gut as the only remainder of his existence: a burning, scorching, billowing cloud of blood red. She stays quiet; she refuses to let herself think of her being in the wrong; she stays quiet. Her own decisions are hers to make, and her own feelings are hers to feel. The wind flowing through her hair jumbles into mixed feelings; she stays quiet.

 

 

Dirk worries about Jake. He's grown more seclusive, and whenever he does catch glimpses of him, his skin seems almost pale and sickly. He seems fake. Almost comical. He worries about Jake much like anyone else.

Every night, Dirk can hear the scratchy edges of a hum. Something menacing, cynical, and ruthless sweetened with hard alcohol lingering somewhere along the breaths of air that bleeds. Dirk imagines a heart pumped full of falsities.

 

 

Jade Harley remembers the hushed moments that came from exiting the door. A lingering touchy-touchy sensitivity that drove her wild. She could hear the beginnings of a click-click-click, and the thrumming of something new. Jade Harley remembers the worried side glances everyone gave each other. She remembers the blank look of Terezi, the red-red-red of his cape, the sudden nothing that came after everything, the steady grip Jane had on her weapon. Jade could remember that, and maybe much more. Jade remembers the distance between her and Rose, the staticky gasoline bubbling between them. It was if one single word could set it on fire and then… the world started anew.

It wasn't pretty, things took time. But, luckily he was there and so, it went pretty quickly. There was the glow of the sun pooling against the vivid blues of a breeze and sky. There was the settling warmth inside their hearts and the fauna and flora began blooming and blossoming and whatever these kinds of plants do. It was strong, weak, fragile, brittle, soft, malleable. It was whatever they could make of it. It was new.

  
Jade Harley remembers Rose Lalonde. Her purple eyes and black lipstick pairing well with the other lady. The, uh, the one with the chainsaw and dresses. Jade remembers the glances they shared with each other and the bubbling laughs. Jade remembers feeling alone.

It was the three-year journey. The quiet days that felt like they were repeating, but they weren't. It was suffocating. Cake and cookies everyday grew sickening, and the company there wasn't exactly… comforting. Jade remembers wanting to die. She remembers the sharp things in the house that she would use. She remembers the millions of pills from all of the cabinets in the house(s). She remembers the bleary days of just nothingness. She remembers the countless days where she woke up hurling into the nearest container and feeling disgusting. She remembers the tired bags around her eyes grow bigger and bigger, and wanting to shrink smaller and smaller. She remembers the boiling point of water. She remembers feeling dull and cloudy and stuffy. She remembers the feeling of an edge that she craved for. She remembers the codependency on any kind of way to feel anything. She remembers the book she read exactly 351 times. She remembers crying until she wasn't. She remembers the end of the wait and coming out into the world, and she remembered how outside was like.

 

 

Jade Harley flies into the air and starts think about him. And it works. It works and she's glad and she falls down onto her knees. Her legs gave out. She found him. She starts crying and she doesn't know why. She remembers coming out into the new world. She remembers the fight that happened. She remembers lots of things that she shouldn't. Jade found herself placing her head onto a cool surface, and the pearls of tears dripped out of her eyes. She was an ugly crier. Her glasses fall off and she can't help but cry harder, louder, whatever. She doesn't care. It hurts. Jade Harley remembers where she is.

It was Dave Strider's grave, and she remembered him. She remembers his sunglasses that were gifted to him. She remembers his nonchalant face that almost never gave way to a smile. She remembers him, and it hurts. She sets down the flowers in her hands on to the cool, hard surface, and sniffles. She stands there and the sun falls and rises. Time doesn't exist here anymore. Jade Harley remembers, and remembers, and remembers.

Until she forgets.

 

 

 

 


End file.
